Best buddies since their college days, Curt Ellis and Ian Cheney are the stars and co-creators of King Corn, the Peabody Award-winning documentary about their year growing one acre of corn and seeing it transformed into high fructose corn syrup and fast-fattened beef. After King Corn, Cheney and Ellis teamed up to create the Truck Farm film and education project, based on a whimsical farm-on-wheels planted in the back of a 1986 Dodge pickup. They are also the co-founders of FoodCorps, a national team of Americorps leaders who connect kids to real food and help them grow up healthy. In 2011, Cheney and Ellis were the youngest recipients ever to receive the prestigious Heinz Award for their work using humor and innovation to engage people about sustainable food. Ellis is currently Executive Director of FoodCorps, and Cheney, a Knight Journalism fellow at MIT, recently directed the feature documentary The Search for General Tso.

This event is sponsored by the Program in the Environment, the Goldring Family Foundation, and the Penny Stamps Speaker Series, with support from the School of Natural Resources & Environment, the College of Literature, Science & the Arts, and Planet Blue Ambassadors Program.